First of all, get a house, and a woman and an ox // for the plough – a slave woman and not a wife, to follow the // oxen as well – and make everything ready at home, so that you // may not have to ask of another, and he refuses you, and so, // because you are in lack, the season pass by and your work come to // nothing. Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day // after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who // puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who // putts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.
Works and Days, 405-413. c. 700 BC. The first written poet in Greek (Homer composed his poems orally)